A revolution before daybreak: Coptic Orthodox Pope, Tawadros II

Pope Tawadros II has realised that the revolutionary spirit in
Egypt cannot be suppressed. His answer has been to create a system in the Coptic Orthodox Church that is
more open minded and accessible than it has ever been in nearly two thousand
years of existence, says Nelly van
Doorn-Harder.

The 25th of January anniversary of
Egypt’s revolution,
Tawadros II,
who became pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church this past November, did not send
out his usual uplifting
message to the believers on Twitter. Instead, after a day
of business as usual, he addressed the believers via television. When asked for
coping strategies for the current political and economic upheavals, he advised
that Egypt’s Christians turn off the TV, take a rest from the news and focus on
prayer since “God’s promise is alive and He will preserve our country.”

That day and the days following, there has
been little to celebrate. Egyptians are ruled by anger, discontent, and
disappointment for what many
consider to be a failed democracy. In addtion to pro-democracy demonstrators,
on the 25th of January, thousands of soccer fans hit the streets in anger when
21 defendants were sentenced to death for their alleged role in last February’s
soccer riots, which left 79 fans dead in the town of Port Said. Many say these
21 are the scapegoats of a failed security system; the government did nothing to
protect the fans. By Tuesday, January 29, more than 50 people were killed: most
of them in Port Said, some around Tahrir Square.

The fabric of the revolution is unraveling. Egypt has a new constitution that many Egyptians consider to be so heavily
influenced by Islamist ideas that it ignores vital parts of the population:
women, liberal Muslims, and religious minorities. The country is reeling in political and economic
upheaval. President Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, comes across
as isolated and incompetent. He is believed to take his orders from the
Brothers highest leader, the murshid. In the midst of chaos, religious ultra conservatives, the Salafis,
keep insisting
that only the strictest form of Islamic law can save Egypt. They claim that
this strict set of laws will uphold “the purest ethics and ideologies” as
symbolized by a ban on alcohol, the segregation of the sexes and the imposition
of Islamic dress.

Egyptians see their society becoming polarized
between Muslim conservatives and the rest. The Salafis are illiberal at heart
and consider Muslims of other mindsets, as well as Coptic Christians, to be
unbelievers. Although democratically chosen, the new Islamic regime comes
across as profoundly theocratic. Egypt’s Christians--Orthodox, Catholics, and
Protestants--are all in the same boat.They fear that the regime’s ultimate goal
is to take the country back to a time were differentiation based on religion
was enshrined within the Islamic
state.

Tawadros did not base his advice to close the
door and wait out the storm on pure theological reasoning. He takes his clues
from history. He is not the first Coptic pope to start his reign in a time of
profound chaos; in the past, Copts have survived similar periods of extreme
duress. Tawadros must continue to be a spiritual leader for the Copts who have
left Egypt, and for the millions who’ve stayed.

The charismatic Pope Cyril VI (1959-1971)
became the leader of the Church when it was in the midst of utter internal
chaos; lay people and clergy were at each other’s throats, while the wealth of
the entire community was decimated by Nasser’s revolutionary decisions. Muslim
politician Dr. Shahira Mehrez recounts that in those days her father who hailed from a family of
landowners,was so afraid of Nasser’s decrees that he did
not dare watch television and eventually died of sheer stress.

During the time of Tawadros’ predecessor,
Shenouda III (1971-2012), incidents of inter-communal strife increased. During his
forty years in office, there were at least twenty- three clashes that can be
classified as massacre; more than twenty people were killed at one time.
Especially when President Sadat (1970-1981), in an attempt to court radical
Muslims, re-instated the Shari’ah as one of the legal sources of Egyptian law
attacks on Christians increased. Sadat famously called himself “a Muslim
president of a Muslim country.” The Pope and the President collided head on, and Shenouda ended up being exiled
for an extended period in a remote monastery (1981-1985). Shortly after the
Pope had left Cairo, the President was murdered by the
same group he had been flirting with.

Even after the long autocratic rule of Pope
Shenouda III
(1971-2012), the Coptic Orthodox Church is much less
polarized than it was during the 1960s. Shenouda expanded the Church and gave Copts a renewed
sense of identity. At the same time, he was the sole voice speaking on behalf
of the community, vis-à-vis the government, and he was not very
democraticly-minded. A host of excommunications reveal a tendency to quell
dissenting voices. But outside the
papal residence, the quest for justice and freedom during the early days of the
2011 Revolution resounded within the Church as much as in the streets;
especially among the youth.

Metropolitan Pachomius of Damanhour, who
served as interim pope, was keenly aware of this reality and in his view: “The
desire for democracy is a movement all over Egypt. After January 25, 2011, you
can’t tell anybody what to do anymore.” Coptic legal scholar Mina Khalil has
found the same trend among Copts in Cairo’s populous neighborhoods where all, young,
old, rich or poor, clamor to speak their mind.

Pachomius’ first move was to democratize the
1959 laws governing the election of a new pope. His second move was to withdraw Bishop Paula from Tanta, who
represented the Coptic hierarchy, from the committee
charged with drafting the much contested Constitution that in the view of many
does not allow for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and ignores the
rights of women and religious minorities. The decision making process in itself
was revolutionary as the Metropolitan consulted with all levels of his Church
before carrying his suggestions to its highest body, the Holy Synod. Experts,
scholars, journalists, and regular church members were invited to express their
opinions. He asked the conference of seventy with whom he discussed the Coptic
Orthodox stance concerning the new Constitution if the official Coptic representation should
continue to work in the drafting committee or not. They
voted “no” with an overwhelming majority and the Metropolitan offered President
Morsi his Church’s resignation.
Following this decision, the Catholic and Protestant churches followed suit and
equally withdrew their representatives.

The new pope,
Tawadros, used to be an assistant bishop to Pachomius. He followed his mentor
in opening the often secretive halls of the Church. During an interview on January 24th,
he told me that words such as democracy and revolution are not
appropriate to describe this new wind in his ancient, hierarchicChurch. He calls it a
“modernization,” a new policy that allows all Copts “to express their ideas and
to share and participate in church issues.” In his view, they are all servants
of the Church. He is a firm believer in delegating and team work.

As for the
Church; his first priority is to create a transparent
administrative system that protects individuals from the vagaries of nepotism
and favoritism. This is
not an easy task. Some articles in the much debated new
Constitution underline the elements of authority within the Church that are
problematic for its youth as well as for many
other Copts. Article 3 grants the Church
prime authority in matters of personal status. In real life, this means, for
example, that you can only marry in the Church. Most Copts are quite happy with
this law as it prevents Islamic influence in what they consider to be a
Sacrament. Those who seek a divorce are not happy though since the only two
reasons the Church accepts for breaking up a marriage are adultery and
conversion to Islam. These strict rules are equally followed by Egypt’s
Protestants. In the twenty-first century, the Church’s strict stance creates
what Pope Tawadros has called “a headache,” as it sends out a message that
there is no freedom inside the Church.

The ideas
laid out in article three of the Constitution in fact create a division across
religious lines within Egypt’s population. As a result, Article
33 that
claims all citizens to be equal before the law does not reflect reality. Even
if not discriminated against openly, Copts know that forms of inequality are unavoidable in Egyptian society.
Yet, they don’t quite know how they could fit into a state ruled by
Islamic law. They fear
a return to the time of segregation where Christians and Jews living in the
Muslim empires could enjoy freedom in their own quarters as long as they
remained separate.

Yet, in Christian eyes this is old news in a new jacket; the Church has
prepared its members for years to face these kind of realities. The main
guidance from above is that while rejecting violence, Christians should express
their opinions and air their grievances to the authorities. The Church has long
provided Copts with forms of civil assistance and, according to Metropolitan
Pachomius, now more than ever the Church wants to take its position in society
by building more clinics, hospitals and schools to help improve Egypt’s
deplorable education system. To stop the tide of unemployment, plans are in the
making for vocational training centers.

Article 219 of the Constitution confirms to
the Copts that the Islamic visions for future remain blurred; the article
explains that the principles of the Shari’ah are “general evidence,
foundational rules, rules of jurisprudence, and credible sources accepted in
Sunni doctrines and by the larger community.” The wording shows that an Islamic
law that seems fixed in fact remains unclear. Relying on jurisprudence allows
the judge or any Muslim in a position of authority, including the “community,”
inappropriate measures of power. Based on the legal school or specific
interpretation they follow (it could be the one from the Wahhabis), there is
the potential to criminalize certain acts, for example going out on a date. In
the end, the balance between legislative, executive and judicial powers could
disappear. So the churches are speaking up and encouraging all of their members
to do the same.To add volume to their voices,, for the first time in history, they
have launched an Egyptian Council of Churches that unites Egypt’s Protestant, Catholic and
Orthodox Christians.

In the meantime, while the streets are still
filled with protestors, a true
revolutionary spirit seems to have taken hold of the Coptic
Orthodox Church. Assisted by little armies of like-minded priests, bishops,
monks, nuns, and lay people, Pope Tawadros II has started to create a
system that is more open minded and accessible than it has ever been in nearly
two thousand years of existence. He is following the advice of his mentor: he
takes care of his people but does not impose his will. While organizing
conferences and other venues to hear their voices, he sends them a daily tweet
with spiritual words. Copts themselves avidly spread his words of
encouragement. While Egypt’s leaders seem to be groping through the dark that
engulfs the country, Tawadros encouragement appeared on many Facebook pages:

The night is short

The sun will rise again

Remain hopeful

The light will break through for Egypt.

About the author

Nelly van Doorn-Harder is Profeesor of Islamic Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, USA. She has published on issues concerning women and religion, and minority cultures in Islamic countries.

Before moving to the USA she was director of a refugee program in Cairo, Egypt, and taught Islamic Studies at universities in the Netherlands and Indonesia (Yogyakarta).

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence.
If you have any queries about republishing please contact us.
Please check individual images for licensing details.

openDemocracy 50.50

100% independent media covering gender, sexuality and social justice – worldwide. Today we need this more than ever. Every £1 goes into producing and publishing more in-depth and critical journalism, commentary and analysis from women from around the globe. Contribute today.

50.50 on Twitter

Tiffany Kagure MugoAFRO-SEXUALITY SPEAKEASYTalking about sex, sexual identity and sexuality in an easy and lubricated way, taking some of the serious out of the sexual and reproductive health and rights conversation.

Claudia TorrisiL'ITALIA FEMMINISTAMonthly features about gender and human rights in Italy. Reporting on sexism, racism, poverty and other connected systems of oppression. Mediterranean intersectionality.